3d printed tank exploded

[Tom Dulski]

 What was amazing was the shear volume of liquid that was underneath the model when I first noticed it.

[Cait Sidhe]

I have seen and heard of this happening with a lot of thicker resin pieces. I think as FDM gets better and better, less and less resin prints will be used.

Or folk can just slice and clean models properly... 

This was not from a professional printer or anything.

Sorry the word "professional" was doing a lot of heavy lifting there seeing as barrier to entry is a printer, an eBay account and a commercial licence (and a lot don't bother with the last). I guess I meant someone who thinks they know enough about 3D printing to do it commercially.

[YPU]

Ah, yeah just like I commented in the 3d AI topic a few moments before, when it comes to 3d printing we also lack much of an established standard of quality at the moment. Its the wild west out there as they say.

I sometimes wonder, with people pulling tricks like this, and 3d stores coming and going like the tide... In 20-50 years a lot of the miniature scene of today may well be lost to time. Manufacturers claim how long their resin will last, but that is assuming correct printing and curing. I foresee a lot of cracking and crumbling armies in a few decades tbh. Then again, resin going of is nothing new, and lead rot has been around a lot longer than I have so its nothing new in the end.

[Mammoth miniatures]

Ah, yeah just like I commented in the 3d AI topic a few moments before, when it comes to 3d printing we also lack much of an established standard of quality at the moment. Its the wild west out there as they say.

I sometimes wonder, with people pulling tricks like this, and 3d stores coming and going like the tide... In 20-50 years a lot of the miniature scene of today may well be lost to time. Manufacturers claim how long their resin will last, but that is assuming correct printing and curing. I foresee a lot of cracking and crumbling armies in a few decades tbh. Then again, resin going of is nothing new, and lead rot has been around a lot longer than I have so its nothing new in the end.

Also alot of these materials are really totally unknown, untested, shot in the dark mixtures from nameless factories that haven't done a great deal of long term testing. and much of the long term testing that has been done is done under the assumption that the print will be sat away from sunlight in a room temperature room with good ventilation in a house in California. the cheap resin and no name PLA most people use aren't being tested to see how long they hold up against british humidity and damp, or full blown Arizona sunshine, or the stuffy interior of a foam storage box.
The good stuff from the big companies will have gone through rigorous safety and durability testing, but most people aren't using the good stuff, they're using the cheap stuff.
 Even high quality polyurethane resin will yellow after a day or two in the sun, and it'll go brittle after a few months if it isn't painted, and that's a resin that is generally considered to be UV stable. HIPs will go brittle in the sun over a few years. A UV resin tank left in sunlight might technically be fully cured, but I can imagine alot of armies will be more fragile than a hip joint at an octogenarian swingers party in a few years time, and will probably need to be handled with the same amount of caution.

[carlos marighela]

Research chemicals, they make 'em better every year.

Personally I'd be inclined to keep that tank as it is and just call it a range target. The effects of being hit with a 165mm HESH round.

[Dubbya]

YPU and Mammoth Miniatures, good points and something I'm worried about.

Along with lead rot, I'm seeing the odd horror story of 1/72 fans finding their collections crumbling, admittedly that's over a linger time span!

Space is an issue for me, so unpainted models often end up in my garage. Temperatures range from zero to 40 deg Celsius, living alongside redback spiders. I haven't seen any damage yet. Some are from what I'd consider professional printers, some absolutely the cheapest I could find...

[Mammoth miniatures]

YPU and Mammoth Miniatures, good points and something I'm worried about.

Along with lead rot, I'm seeing the odd horror story of 1/72 fans finding their collections crumbling, admittedly that's over a linger time span!

Space is an issue for me, so unpainted models often end up in my garage. Temperatures range from zero to 40 deg Celsius, living alongside redback spiders. I haven't seen any damage yet. Some are from what I'd consider professional printers, some absolutely the cheapest I could find...

That'll be vinyl/ plastisol slowly leeching out it's oil content and becoming brittle.
It's a perennial problem - most of these materials are new, often variations of older material, and whilst we know ecologically speaking they last for millennia, practically speaking their lifespans are super variable. And so much of what is used outside of major manufacturing is untraceable "trust me bro" unlabeled material.

I suppose it's worth us all asking how long something truly needs to last - do our figures need to endure 50/60 years, or is a decade enough? And if so, do we perhaps need to start thinking about a return to composite toy soldiers, or paper pulp, or more recent experimental materials like injection moulded beet sugar and cellulose fibre.

But when it comes to prints like OP it's the worst of both worlds - unreliable lifespan AND toxic sludge.

[Dolnikan]

Materials certainly is an issue. I experimented with casting my own figures in resin a few years back (it was awful, to be honest. So after I was through the first bottles of resin I stopped doing it). These still hold well, but it's a different material of course, and for the most part they've spent their time in boxes in the attic. That said, many materials used for 3D printing haven't had much in the way of long term testing and I also don't suppose that many companies do testing under more extreme circumstances like you'll see with materials used in, for instance, the automotive industry.

Another issue that has also been pointed out repeatedly is that 3D printing often isn't done under very controlled circumstances. Lots of people do it at home, which naturally leads to a huge variety in settings, temperature, humidity, pollutants, and everything else you can imagine that you wouldn't see in any kind of factory. Many professional printers also don't really do much in the way of that. Everyone can open up a store and start selling (and printing) as long as they have a printer and files. Quality control also is hard. It's very easy to basically be a cowboy in a way a traditional company can't. Bad experiences mean that you just have to start over with the same files and everything. You can't really do that when you're a casting operation and you're the only one with those sculpts.

I however don't think that many professional printers will do things like we see here. It costs a lot of extra resin and that means an additional expense. It's more something that people who are more on the starting out side of things experience. But even then, it's only one of the many things that can happen.

[Tom Dulski]

 I'm wondering how much temperature plays a part. I store everything in my basement which is much cooler than the rest of the house. This Tank exploded while we were enduring a week long heatwave. Even in the basement temperatures were pretty high.Assuming we had normal summer weather that week the tank may have remained intact. As I said there were 2 identical tanks printed by the same seller on Ebay. Only one exploded that week while the other remains fine.

[Dolnikan]

I'm wondering how much temperature plays a part. I store everything in my basement which is much cooler than the rest of the house. This Tank exploded while we were enduring a week long heatwave. Even in the basement temperatures were pretty high.Assuming we had normal summer weather that week the tank may have remained intact. As I said there were 2 identical tanks printed by the same seller on Ebay. Only one exploded that week while the other remains fine.

An increase in temperature can certainly cause issues like that. So that probably has a part in it. That, and chance. Chance is something that's horrible underestimated in how much of an effect it has (or can have). Just a slightly different position can already make a huge difference.

That said, I'd be very careful with that other tank from now on. It would really suck if it were to go as well. One thing you might do is to take it out (wearing gloves) and make a few holes in the bottom and then letting the resin leak out. Outdoors to avoid any air quality issues of course.

[Dubbya]

I suppose it's worth us all asking how long something truly needs to last - do our figures need to endure 50/60 years, or is a decade enough? And if so, do we perhaps need to start thinking about a return to composite toy soldiers, or paper pulp, or more recent experimental materials like injection moulded beet sugar and cellulose fibre.

One thing starting to wonder for myself, is whether everything of mine needs to last that long. It's awesome I have stuff I bought 30 years ago. Does every I buy today need to?

I hesitated putting together for forces of paper miniatures and scenery. Now I don't care, if I get enjoyment out of them today that's enough (mainly due to the cost, mind).

Other hobbies either I'm into or people around me have similar problems - early video games, vintage toys and movie props. These things just weren't intended to last so long.

[bvandewalker]

What was amazing was the shear volume of liquid that was underneath the model when I first noticed it.

Yeah, I bought a whole painted 3D resin printed scifi army/game off ebay once, it didn't ship well at all but for $1.00 it seemed like fair trade and yes one of the tanks burst to the point where its causality terrain now with tons of resin at time leaking out, honestly I thought all the larger items in the lot leaked, even the seller didn't know what was going. I put all the models in treys full water first thing and left them outside, then found out that was probably exactly the right thing to do to cure the buggers (but I may want to drill some holes in the other items I got just in case ).

[Ragsta]

Hmmm. Reading through this thread now has me wondering if my selection of 3d printed bits and bobs are going to start going off like fire crackers  Oh well, they only have my tomb to look forward to either way eh!

[Dentatus]

Happened to a terrain piece of mine. Had it for a year+ then came into the game room to find a tree top exploded open like a melon, goop everywhere. 
Rinsed it out, cleaned it up, and finagled a repair.

[vodkafan]

 Well all this should serve to teach you young whippersnappers that METAL is BETTER 
I am joking of course, we are all going to die anyway and leave our precious armies at the mercy of folks who don't care, the fugitive time span of our toys is nothing to the universe.....